Software applications are typically developed by teams of programmers, each being responsible for individual components or functionality. To facilitate rapid application development, the developers usually program in parallel, often on components that may be integrated with other elements of the application. To support such activities, conventional development environments usually include a central code repository and separate, individual development environments for each programmer, often referred to as “branches.” Developers “check out” code from the central repository, work on the code in an environment that is secluded from others as not to introduce programming errors into the primary codebase, and once properly tested, check their code back in. A release engineer or QA engineer then confirms the new code, compiles a new application instance, and allows others to access the newly developed code for subsequent development or release.
Separately, applications are often tested against enterprise policies that govern compliance with security and vulnerability criteria. However, use of the application or enterprise-level policies often results in rework and repetition of effort, as the policies are not checked until the overall application is compiled. Ways to support multiple separate streams of development of an application while ensuring that policy compliance and analytics at the enterprise level are not adversely affected, are not generally available. Improved techniques for parallel application development in several branches are therefore needed.